personal life and his political life, and reshaped america, certainly one of my heros and one of robert dowd's as well so if you want a good one volume, this is a recent updated version of who franklin roosevelt was, and very much worth reading. this book called "the unwinding" by george packer. recommend for people who want to understand the economic unsettlement that produced donald trump why were so many midwest, rust belt, industrialized cities of the past -- why were they so upset? the hollowing out, the impact on human lives, the extraordinary stress caused be the loss of a job and the economic dislocation for the whole family is brilliantly recounted in the book called "the unwinding" and high lyings a number of plays, including youngstown, ohio, for example, and you can't not read this book and not understand the forces, the economic forces that led to the political forces that led to the election outcome of 2016. i really recommend this book. this book called "this gulf afire is the story of the earthquake and tsunami that hit lisbon, portugal. it was not that long ago next late 18th

washington couldn't be more dramatic so i think that's a good thing to talk about. >> matthew dowd and cokie roberts, really appreciate your analysis on a saturday morning. thank you both. >> good to be with you. f republican candidates overnight at a republican dinner in ohio avoiding the growing firestorm surrounding some of his close allies. >> prosecutors granting immunity to the trump organization's longtime chief financial officer who is now cooperating in the michael cohen investigation. abc's white house correspondent tara palmeri is at the white house this morning with that story. tara, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, eva and whit. that's right. the president leaving the scandal behind but also seeming to leave behind his swagger. he was definitely more subdued last night in the buckeye state. overnight the president capping off a week of legal bombshells from his inner circle at an annual republican party dinner in ohio. >> we must work every day until november to elect more ohio republicans, so we can continue to make america great again. >> reporter: holding back from mentioning

robert mueller's obstruction probe. former outside attorney for the president john dowd responded to the report calling it complete fictionying "don mcgann was a strong witness for the president." joining me now are republican strategist and former assistant deputy of state filip reynes. did i get that right? >> close enough. >> i'll start with you on this. should the president be worried, his team in the white house, outside counsels, anybody be worried at this point? >> well, look, i think the only reason anyone should be worried is if there's something to hide. i said this repeatedly as we continue to discuss the mueller investigation, you know, i know those on the left don't want to hear it, but it is possible we may get to the end of this investigation and he doesn't find that the president did anything wrong. now, i said it's possible. i don't know, we'll have to see, but i think that everyone that is needed to cooperate should cooperate, and innocent people have nothing to hide, and, frankly, i think the more that we can do to get the mueller investigation to its conclusion, the better. i think the american people

robert mueller. >>> here's rudy giuliani again on "meet the press" this morning. >> john dowd yesterday said, i'll use his words rather than mine, that mcgahn was a strong witness for the president. so i don't need to know much more about that. they don't have collusion or conspiracy as brennan pointed out. and -- >> how do you know that? you say this so definitively. how do you know they don't? >> i know they don't because, look, this whole mcgahn thing leaked from them. if they had, if they had some kind of evidence that there was collusion or there was obstruction, don't you think it would have been leaked? i mean, they leak everything else. >> ken dilanian, what in your view is the significance of what we now know about the mcgahn testimony? and while, yes, the white house had been arguing as recently as this morning that they were fine with it, there were still information down in that story -- the first story at the times, mcgahn thought he was potentially being set up. >> that was a jaw-dropping story. if they were fine with it they didn't read the story carefully. it made clear don mcgahn

reporter: john dowd call allegations of apprehensions about his corporation with robert mueller 's team fiction. eric: the time to saying it was self-preservation according to the paper. meanwhile, what does the white house special counsel say on this if anything? reporter: just received a statement from the white house. sarah sanders told fox news that when it comes to the working relationship between don mcgahn and the president quote - the president and don mcgahn have a great relationship. he preaches all the hard work he has done. particularly his help and expertise with judges and supreme court. and anything else related to the investigation she referred to outside legal counsel and the attorney for don mcgahn pbs special counsel no surprise they declined to comment. a source may with the investigation told us they do not see anything in the report from the times that is troubling in terms of an impact on the mueller investigation but they say it is unclear how the president will read the article. the source, also pointing out that it was known in the past that don mcgahn was coop

dowd. they wanted to fully cooperate. you and emmett flood wanted more parameters around what special counsel robert mueller would have donewould you have recommended the amount of cooperation don mcgahn has given to robert mueller had you been the attorney at the beginning? >> they represented him at a different stage in this investigation. actually, they did something very, very helpful. they allowed 32 witnesses to testify. they turned over 1.4 million documents. they didn't raise executive privilege or in this case with mr. mcgahn attorney/client privilege so that the independent counsel, special counsel could get as much evidence as possible. in fact, i think john dowd would tell you was an agreement with bob mueller that it would be conclud concluded quickly. if i had known the outcome that mueller would not conclude it quickly, that this really wasn't an attempt in good faith to try to work out some resolution of this, i might have chosen a different strategy. i am pretty sure they would have. be that as it may, it puts us in a strong position to say we don't -- they don't need to question him. they have all the inf

robert mueller. something we knew about. maybe not the exact extent of it. it was an idea that was drawn up by john dowd and ty cobb, both former attorneys on behalf of the president in the russia investigation. their idea was they wanted complete transparency with mueller and they believed that they gave mueller as much transparency as was possible. for that reason dowd said this morning on "fox & friends" there is no reason for the president to sit down for an interview with mueller. listen here. >> he is the one that asked for the witnesses. he is the one that asked for the documents. he told us that everybody told the truth. he told us he didn't need anymore documents. all those documents and testimony answered, all the 49 questions and all the topics he raised we put in the january 29th letter and offered to write it up again. >> mcgahn is expected to be replaced by emmett flood. he replaced ty cobb in may as the in-house counsel on the russia investigation. flood is known as a pro who has represented george w. bush, former vice president dick cheney and bill clinton but one person is concerned abo

if i understood john roberts report, and my scores were averaging yet my reading was strong. he came out and said today, the reason why -- school? the reason why dowdame out and did this is because he wanted to talk to everybody. and he says that we got to prepare ourselves to get thrown under the bus. as months passed it became apparent that mcgann and burke had overestimated the amount of thought that went into the president saying, go talk to him. they had no master plan to throw him out of the bus, he just said to come and go talk to him. i got nothing to hide. >> he thinks that it will say to his supporters, i got nothing to hide. i'm telling people to go ahead and talk. and that's why ty cobb and others have gone -- the problem with the giuliani strategy is today that headline is all about truth is in truth. >> i will go be the broken record here. if you read these names to the american public, you could be reading them members of a new zealand cricket team. >> that's why we do that all on the show. >> i'm trying to supplement a lead tell them that the producers -- >> let me ask about another member of that cricket team, uncle cohen. apparent

, president trump's former lawyer, john dowd, he said today that he believes there is no need at all for the president to ever sit down with special counsel robertto how he said it. >> there's no reason for the president to answer questions from mueller. mueller has all the answers. we gave him all the answers. >> we heard a similar smoke signal from rudy giuliani earlier in the week. do you believe the president was ever serious about sitting down with the special counsel? >> so neither john dowd nor rudy giuliani have actually literally been hired for their legal expertise so much as their public relations expertise. this is all a part of the spin machine, it's not a part of a legal defense. and, no, i think it's highly doubtful that the people around the president would ever allow him to sit down with director mueller, although it's important to note that an awful lot of what's going on could be brought to closure if the president would agree to do that, as he has indicated in the past he would be willing to do, but has not been thus far. so i'm not at all optimistic that the president will sit down with him. in fact i think his lawyers would

else and robert mueller is going to do it meticulously and will take as long as he needs to get this right. >> should not that special counsel has declined to comment. not surprising there. john dowdside counsel for the president says he thinks that don mcgahn was probably a very effective witness. we will wait and see how this all plays out but let me get a chance for a final thought, let's start with you, john. >> actually do not think this is a bad thing at all. i think the president has nothing to hide here. other than the only concern honestly, the perjury trap. like rudy giuliani has said. i think it is good, full transparency is good. as you are seen time and time again, robert mueller is coming up dry with george papadopoulos. >> he did not come up dry! >> there's nothing with papadopoulos. but there was no collusion, jessica. >> so all of the lying is fine. >> no, jessica, robert mueller is going to the madam network with roger stone in interviewing her. this is what you do when you are desperate. i just hope that we get to a conclusion sooner rather than later. honestly mike, i do not think this is a big deal. mike: refresh reaction from the white house let's get to it.

robert mueller he cooperated fully fearing trump's team may have been setting him up as a fall guy. his personal lawyer rudy guiliani says he's been assured that mcgahn supports the president. >> john dowday said, i'll use his words rather than mine, that mcgahn was a strong witness for the president. >> reporter: president trump, himself, blasted the "time's" story, tweeting it implied because white house counsel don mcgahn was giving hours of testimony, he must be a john dean type, rat. but i allowed him and all others to testify. i didn't have to. i have nothing to hide. dean is the former white house counsel sefor richard nixon who famously flipped on the president during the watergate investigation. dean tweeting mcgahn is doing right. but the president's legal team seems to be unaware how much mcgahn is talking and the president hasn't decided to sit down with mueller, himself. in a new interview with reuters, when asked about mueller's investigation the president went as far to say, quote, i could run it if i want. as for sitting down with mueller, answering questions, he still will not say if he will do that. the president, himself, raising the question of whether this should be

robert mueller. his cooperation was something that was the idea of ty cobb who we talked about and john dowd, who wasnsel until the beginning of april. they thought that it would be a better idea to get mcgahn to cooperate with mueller rather than risk mueller subpoenaing everyone in the white house. mcgahn spoke with mueller a number of times. 30 hours of questioning, which is why this morning john dowd said on fox and friends there is no reason for mueller to sit down and interview the president. listen here. >> he is the one that asked for the witnesses. he is the one that asked for the documents. he told us that everybody told the truth. he told us he didn't need anymore documents. all those documents and testimony answer, all the 49 questions, and all the topics he raised, we put it in our january 29th letter. offered to write it up again. >> again, even though we've known this was likely coming for months, a rather unusual response from chuck grassley, the chairman of the senate judiciary committee who just tweeted president trump, i hope it's not true mcgahn is leaving white house counsel? you

. >> so, john dowd, i understand, i talked to him on the radio on friday he was one of the president's attorneys. he said when he sat down with roberty give get it over quick. he gave him over a million documents. he felt like weighs totally mislead by robert mueller. he is james comey two. when you guys talk. >> of course not. >> okay. i do think there are a lot of problems? yes. do they portray it that way? no. it's a conversation between and among lawyers. jane raskin does most of the negotiating for us and -- does most of the negotiating for him. they are very civil. we have gotten good things out of it. they probably have also. be that as it may there should right now be an investigation of comey, mueller the whole group. brian: you want an investigation on the investigation? >> absolutely. go back to the beginning of it. it begins with a phony dossier. strzok, the horowitz report which casts all types of doubt with what happened on hillary and those people transformed to the counter intelligence investigation it never produces a darn thing. i am now convinced that the initiation of the independent counsel was totally illegal.